


The Sighting

by sidebyside_archivist



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-01
Updated: 2004-08-01
Packaged: 2020-06-29 20:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidebyside_archivist/pseuds/sidebyside_archivist
Summary: While Spock is at Gol, Kirk inexplicably sees him on Market Street.





	The Sighting

**Author's Note:**

> Note from LadyKardasi and Sahviere, the archivists: this story was originally archived at [Side by Side](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Side_by_Side_\(Star_Trek:_TOS_zine\)) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. We tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Side by Side’s collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sidebyside/profile).
> 
> Author's Note:  
> Thank you, Hypatia, for allowing this very beautiful first line from your haunting story “Embers” to be a part of this challenge. Because it has such a lovely rhythm, as well as the wonderful word “amidst,” I thought it could be poetry… and now it is.

_I caught a glimpse of him on Market Street, amidst the morning crowd._   
_The fog that day was sullen, the traffic loud,_   
_the people blunted in their customary early Tuesday way,_   
_and as for me – well, what can I say?_   
_That I was hurrying to get to where I didn’t want to go_   
_in the first place, the only type of destination I seem to know_   
_these days? That I felt wasted, vacant, and way too old?_   
_That it took everything of the nothing I had inside to hold_   
_myself together hour-to-hour? Yes, and every other face without a name_   
_that swarmed around me probably could’ve said the same._

  
_So let’s go back to him. He appeared on the corner of Market and Third._   
_(Keep in mind here that I’m using the word_   
_“appeared” in a strictly literal sense. This point is important because_   
_at first he wasn’t there… and then he was.)_

  
_Understand that I saw it happen: his abrupt presence, spontaneous_   
_and unexplained, when just a heartbeat earlier only extraneous_   
_strangers roved about on the sidewalk. Standing taller than the rest,_   
_serenely motionless, dressed_   
_in quiet black, he looked up and deliberately met my eyes._   
_I froze - more from joy, I think, than from surprise._   
_On his beloved mouth was that minute smile, diffident and apologetic._   
_When I beheld it, my heart roared into life; I felt that same magnetic_   
_force, unabated by time or hurt, untouchable and immutable._

  
_And yet, I knew it was an all too irrefutable_   
_fact that he couldn’t be there… wasn’t real._   
_“Can the living have a ghost?” I asked myself, but as soon as that surreal_   
_thought crossed my mind, he looked down - and was gone._

  
_I was left once more alone, standing there on_   
_the curb with my world blurred by sudden, futile tears;_   
_filled with the kind of anguish that sears_   
_the spirit and makes numbness seem like clemency. I hated_   
_everything at that moment, hated myself and him and the sedated,_   
_anonymous crowd that was so oblivious, so vacuously unaware_   
_of what had just been wrenched out of me in that little instant. Blank stare_   
_after blank stare – that was all that met me. And if I’d_   
_chosen someone and walked up to him and pulled him aside_   
_and said, “I’ve just seen the ghost of my old lover, who isn’t dead -_   
_over on that corner. He wasn’t there, and then he was…” Instead_   
_of understanding or compassion, I’d receive_   
_at best a look of vague alarm. I’m certainly not naïve_   
_enough to think he’d say, “Yes, I saw him too, across_   
_the street, and also watched him disappear. The loss_   
_must be unbearable; I know that kind of pain_   
_myself – I’ve lived it.” No. The plain_   
_truth is: no one knows. And I could never share_   
_what he was and is, or what it means to live without him: I couldn’t bear_   
_to pour into a stranger’s ear the smallest detail of our most private hours._   
_Those times, both the incandescent and the bitter dark, are ours:_   
_The ones that filled us, and the ones that emptied us out_   
_utterly. I hoard them all alike. Without_   
_them, I would lose the very proof of my own_   
_breath, and blood, and bone._

  
_By sheer force of will, then, I swallowed down all of my tears and part_  
 _of the grief and even a little of the rage, rather than impart_  
 _to any of those who milled about the street what had just occurred_  
 _on the corner. But I could not accept – never will accept - the absurd_  
 _implication of the vision: that all I knew with him has been reduced_  
 _to conjuring magic no more potent than a self-induced_  
 _hallucination – a makeshift ghost. I’ll always avow a love like ours_  
 _ought to have at its disposal infinite powers:_  
 _the power to move mountains, or to change his mind. I must believe a love like_  
 _this ought to make heat from ice; right from wrong. It ought to strike_  
 _fire from ashes, turn the path of fate, heal the ache, shatter_  
 _barriers. A love like this ought to matter –_  
 _it ought to_ count _for something, damn it!_  
 _It ought to, but it doesn’t:_

  
_He was there. And then he wasn’t._


End file.
